History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c11.s9.3

c11.s9.3

If we accept the tradition of the six years spent with Mahāvīra,² this event must be placed about seven years after Gosāla's abandonment of the profession of a *maṅkha*. As Hoernle has pointed out,³ Gosāla claimed to have attained *jina*-hood some two years before Mahāvīra. He is said to have spent sixteen years at Sāvatthi as a pseudo-*jina* before his death,⁴ which Mahāvīra survived for sixteen and a half years.⁵ But Mahāvīra is said to have lived as a *jina* for a little less than thirty years.⁶ If the Jaina scriptures give approximately accurate figures the events here described must have taken place some two or three years before Mahāvīra laid claim to *jina*-hood.